Shutdown hits home, Trump buys burgers

WASHINGTON: As they ambled into the room, members of the championship team whooped at the sight of burgers piled high on a table for their celebratory reception at the White House. There was another table, further up, with pizzas and fries.

All of it was paid for by President Donald Trump personally, because most of the residence staff at the White House had been furloughed due to the ongoing shutdown that has impacted an estimated 800,000 employees of a fourth of the federal government.

The burgers were from Mcdonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King, the market leaders in this category and the pizzas were from Domino’s, the leading chain. “Great American food” is how Trump described the spread.

He is has a partiality towards that food. His daily dinner on the campaign trail was two Mcdonald’s Big Macs and two fillet-offish sandwiches pushed down with a chocolate milkshake, as was revealed by former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in his book, which the president had endorsed.

So there it was all the food he likes —minus steaks—spread out for the players of the Clemson Tigers, the team that won the college American football championship. “The reason we did this is because of the shutdown,” the president said to reporters covering the reception. “We want to make sure that everything is right, so we sent out, we got this. And we have some wonderful people working in the White House.”

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump wanted to host a “fun event” for the college players and because much of the residence staff at the White House is furloughed, he is personally paying for the event to be catered with “some of everyone’s favourite fast foods.”